Tios goes down swinging

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Seaver, sixty-five, isn't holding his breath. According to the long-time local restaurateur (he opened Pizza Bob's on State Street back in 1972, among his other ventures), the city didn't even contact him to tell him it had bought the building-he found out from a couple of secretaries who work at City Hall when they came over for lunch. And he's not just looking for help finding a new location-he wants the city to help cover the cost of moving. To find a new place and move the business, he says, would cost $125,000, plus $30,000 in lost revenue. "When I told them, they said, 'No, we can't do that.'"

Now Seaver's hoping his customers can help out. He's asking for donations from $50 to $5,000. "For $250, you'll get a bottle of our national award-winning salsa delivered once a week for a year," he says. "For $5,000, we'll work out payments to pay you back." Seaver says he's already raised over $20,000.

Meanwhile, Seaver still has three months to find a new place. "If we haven't moved before then, [they'll be] taking my wife and I out of here in handcuffs because we're not going to go for free. We're going to embarrass the city as much as we can."